'No dog' rule overturned

Jimmy Thomson

Larry the Jack Russell was last week given court approval to live in a pet-free Pyrmont building.

A court decision allowing a “hearing assistance” dog to stay in a pet-free apartment building may have set a precedent for other pet owners trying to fight apartment owners who are dead against dogs.

Leading strata lawyer Beverley Hoskinson-Green, a partner at Makinson d'Apice, said the case was a “road map for anyone wishing to get around legitimate by-laws banning pets from strata schemes”.

Larry the Jack Russell was last week given court approval to live in a pet-free Pyrmont building after his owner successfully argued that he was a hearing assistance dog, trained to alert him when there was someone at the door or when a fire alarm had gone off.

Under NSW strata laws, "no-pet" by-laws can't exclude assistance animals, including guide dogs and hearing dogs. But Ms Hoskinson-Green is concerned that other dog owners will use this legal loophole to get their pets into buildings where they are clearly not welcome.

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"All you need to do is take a hearing test which is entirely subjective – if you don't want to hear the noise, you don't press the button – and suddenly you have a hearing impairment,” she says. “You then train your dog to bark at the source of any noise and, once you do that, your dog is a 'hearing dog' and can remain in the strata scheme.”

However, Ms Hoskinson-Green stressed “that was not the case with Larry's owner, who presented long-standing audiometry reports demonstrating hearing impairment".

Strata lawyer Suzie Broome, also of Makinson & d'Apice, who ran the case on behalf of the owners corporation of the apartment block, explained the by-law banning pets was on the books before Leone and Dan Drexler bought their unit in the strata scheme. When Mrs Drexler brought Larry into the building she was asked to remove the dog but refused.

“She then made application to the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal for an adjudicator's order that she be allowed to keep her pet,” says Ms Hoskinson-Green. “Mrs Drexler withdrew her application before it was considered but soon after the Owners Corporation received a notice that Mr Drexler had a hearing impairment and that Larry the dog had been trained as a hearing dog.”

The owners corporation successfully applied to the CTTT – which adjudicates on strata disputes – for orders that the dog be removed from the strata scheme. However, an appeal tribunal later accepted Mr Drexler's assertion that Larry was a bona fide assistance dog and reversed the decision, saying the owners corporation had failed to prove Larry wasn't a hearing dog.

Mr Drexler, a building inspector, said his hearing had been damaged by years of working in the construction industry. Furthermore, Larry had been certified by the City of Sydney Council as an assistance dog, meaning he was allowed on public transport and into shopping centres.

Suzie Broome said she found it "bizarre" that a dog trained to run away from the hearing impaired person and bark at the noise, could perform the function of a hearing assistance dog. “Larry was not trained to go to the hearing impaired person and tap or paw that person to attract their attention – quite the reverse," she said

However, District Court judge Philip Taylor disagreed and found that Larry satisfied the definition of a "dog used as a hearing dog" and upheld the CTTT's decision.

“To me, if a dog hears someone at the door and runs to you, it's a hearing dog,” she explained. “But if it hears someone outside and runs barking to the door, it's just a pet.”

Ms Hoskinson-Green has good reason to fear an epidemic of claimed disability related to attempts to keep dogs in pet-free buildings. She was involved in a similar case when a dog was removed from a "no animals" strata scheme in Cape Cabarita on the Parramatta River.

“In that case, the dog's owner had a doctor's certificate that the dog assisted in relieving the symptoms of a head injury sustained some time previously,” she told Flat Chat. “However, there was other evidence that the dog's owner went to work, did the shopping, played tennis and went to the gym – all without the dog.

“The CTTT adjudicator concluded that the dog was not an assistance dog as contended and required the animal to be removed from the strata scheme.”

Ms Hoskinson-Green said she is a dog owner and supports current moves to make it easier for strata residents to have pets. “While there is a developing movement for the rights of owners to keep their pets in strata schemes (and I'm very much in favour of that), there are circumstances where owners simply do not want to have animals in their strata scheme.

“In the Cape Cabarita case, there were at least two owners who had suffered injury from dog attacks as children which had left them traumatised. In both cases they had carefully checked the by-laws before they purchased their apartments to ensure that the building was “dog free”.

“Strata schemes are really the ultimate democracy and I'm a great believer in abiding by the will of the majority,” she says.

Suzie Broome adds that the irony of training a dog to bark so it could stay in a strata scheme – where the most common complaint about dogs is their barking – wasn't lost on her, her colleagues or owners.

Hearing dogs are a genuine and valuable help to their owners but they are usually trained to alert them by tapping them with their paw when they hear a noise. Some assistance dogs are even trained to knock the phone off the hook, triggering an automatic emergency services call, if their owner collapses.

Lions Hearing Dogs Australia – a charity that trains and provides hearing assistance dogs – recruit their dogs from rescue kennels and it takes six to eight months to train them. One dog highlighted on their website could tell when its owner was about to have an epileptic seizure, 20 minutes before it occurred.

Hearing Dogs Australia decides which dog goes into which home – the hearing impaired person doesn't get to choose the dog. You can find out more about Lions Hearing Dogs on their website.

And you can find dozens of stories about the problems of pets in strata HERE on the Flat Chat Forum.

58 comments

You lose Broome.And as for the trauma of being attacked by dogs, know how I overcame it? By interacting with dogs. They're furry little wonders.

Commenter

Weary

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 03, 2013, 10:30AM

I'm traumatised by the inept actions and selfish attitude of the body corporate in our building - can we ban them from the building too please. Hiding from the cause of a trauma isn't a cure.

Commenter

Tired Camel

Location

Date and time

July 03, 2013, 10:37AM

If you're an owner, you're part of the body corporate - didn't you know?

Commenter

David

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 03, 2013, 11:05AM

Wow Tired Camel that is the dumbest comment I've seen on SMH for a few weeks!

Commenter

hmmm

Location

Date and time

July 03, 2013, 12:28PM

Good win for dogs. Would much rather live with most dogs than the sort of narrow minded, busy-bodies who go around complaining about man's best friend. How any one could want to exclude dogs is beyond me. Well done to Judge Taylor for not being bullied by a strata corporation clearly made up of anti-dog weirdos and their lawyers trying now to re-argue their case in the Herald. If Ms Hoskinson-Green thinks her argument has merits then she should appeal rather than whine here because she lost.

Commenter

Robert

Location

North Shore

Date and time

July 03, 2013, 10:39AM

Just because some people don't like dogs doesn't make them weirdos.

Commenter

pOiter

Location

Date and time

July 03, 2013, 10:58AM

Perhaps people just don't want a yappy dog directly above them going off at all times of the day and night?

How is that narrow minded?

And you know that dogs don't live in strata on their own, don't you.... their owners have to buy the apartment, so you have to live with the owners.

That you classify a dog as "man's best friend" just because you like them doesn't make it a universal trurth... BTW..,

Commenter

David

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 03, 2013, 11:07AM

Robert, one thing here - it depends on how big the dog for the apartment/townhouse. I know that sounds strange, but dogs need room to run around and play outside where it's safe.I'm not a dog person, but being on the so called Strata committee where I live, I have appreciated the odd person putting in the request to have a dog live there. Now, my row of townhouses have small and mostly paved courtyards where everything echo's. One of my neighbours happened to sneak their pet dog in - which will grow to a medium/large sized dog. I understand the need for people to have pets and they are great to have, but sometimes you need to be realistic in the amount of room some pets need.

Commenter

Cath

Location

Date and time

July 03, 2013, 11:16AM

Dogs are great. But not in Apartment blocks. It is cruel they need space to run around to wee and poo. They are animals not humans. They belong in the yard not in the house or in an apartment block. People forget this.

Commenter

Matt

Location

Longueville

Date and time

July 03, 2013, 11:33AM

@ Matt. What nonsense. I have lived on a 1/4 of an acre and a standard residential block and none of my dogs have used the backyard for anything more than going to the toilet or basking in the sun. It's a myth dogs need a backyard!